


The Daily Grind

by Capricorn_Stellium



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Kaon - Freeform, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27003310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capricorn_Stellium/pseuds/Capricorn_Stellium
Summary: A young Megatron wonders what his future holds while awaiting the start of another shift in the mines.[Day Three of MegaRod Week 2020, Prompt: Patience]
Relationships: Implied Megatron/Rodimus - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Megarod Week





	The Daily Grind

**Author's Note:**

> All of Megatron’s fellow miners are named after real world mining related industrial terms. I had fun with this one! 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: Descriptions of mining injuries and deaths, based on real world reported mine injuries. I didn't go too into detail, but there is enough detail that I feel a warning is warranted. Please proceed with caution if that kind of content disturbs you, particularly because the deaths are based on actual mining accidents throughout history. 
> 
> I swear, the rest of my submissions for the week contain much more Rodimus! I just come from a working class background myself (steel milling, farming, and railway works), so I'm very emotionally invested in Miner!Megatron.

The mine was roaring, as another seam of energon crystals had been uncovered in a section just below the lowest lying shaft chamber, resulting in a scramble to expand a working space suitable for bore work and drilling further down into the solid rock ground. 

As the working units assembled to be given their orders for the shift, the pit boss, a large mech with yellow and black paint which appeared nearly incandescent in the oddly cool artificial lighting of the mine bay floor, stepped out with a data pad almost comically small for his giant squared servos. 

"Grinder, Drillbit, Adit, and Silt, you'll be on tailings management. Make sure nothing backs up and see if you can get Trip and Trough to help you get the weight distribution right on the way to a decent clearing area, we don't want too much pressure on the abutment." 

He stopped in front of each small group of workers peppered around the muster point for the loading lifts to the surface far above, often used as a briefing area purely because it was the only chamber large enough to fit so many bots at once. He rattled off designations and gave quick orders before his massive pedes clattered along the precariously grated floors secured only by the weight of a small stone lip holding them in place, only to repeat the process over and over. 

Megatron was bored, albeit pleased the briefings this cycle weren't being given by one of the more aggressive pit bosses around; This one went by the designation Diffuser, and was well-liked for his straightforward manner and the fact that he was also a fellow mine worker. Unlike some of the other pit bosses who would return to the surface at the end of every cycle, never spending longer below ground than their short shifts made necessary, Diffuser often recharged in a berth on the same chamber level as Megatron. 

Diffuser's alt-mode was a massive air circulation unit, used to pump air through the mine shafts and clear visibility when the drilling rousted up too much fine grain dust and particulate, resulting in what was colloquially called "silica fog" amongst the workers. It happened often, making continued operations dangerous as even the brightest headlamps couldn't cut through it, which in turn made Diffuser a popular mech. 

But it did not make him a very fast mech, and Megatron allowed his mind to wander, not wanting to fidget and draw mild mockery from his shift mates who were clustered nearby awaiting the issuing of their tasks. 

He started thinking of mild things, like the time he'd seen Diffuser clip his helm so hard against a low shaft ceiling on the way out of his berth that it left a dent so severe it had warped his left optic a bit, leaving his face plate ever so slightly out of shape in a way that reminded Megatron of the crumpled metallic wrapping from around an energon goodie. 

Then he started thinking about other injuries he'd seen in the mines. 

Gangue, a reliable femme with an ore cart alt-mode had gone over a bad section of track and collapsed into a near-bottomless shaft as the stone had given away under the combined weight, dragging her payload down with her where it crashed on top of her chest and crushed her spark through its casing and all the way through into the armour that covered the back of her protoform, a pool of her own slowly drying energon creating a drip that leaked from her irretrievable corpse for several cycles into the mine chamber below before ceasing. 

Megatron had been part of the crew to cover the collapsed section for it to be re-tracked later by another worker with the right tools for the job, entombing Gangue in the mess of her brutal end. He and several others had left half their energon rations as some small token of remembrance, and he recalled nearly fainting later that shift for the lack of fuel. He never left offerings again; He couldn't afford to, with a frame his size. 

He wasn't particularly spiritual, but Gangue had been as close to a friend as any of his fellow workers. She kept the way clear and always got the ore to the weighting tables for colliery processing right on time, right before the pit bosses had an excuse to get agitated as the work ran closer and closer to the end of their shifts. She had therefore spared many of them unfair beatings or unjust demands for overtime, something more than a few bots were thankful to her for. 

The pit bosses always got to sign off at the end of a shift, especially the higher up ones. But bots like Gangue only truly signed off once they were dead, living and recharging deep in the mines, like cyberbees nestling into their combs but without half the warmth or light of such thin waxen walls. 

Just like the rest of the workers, Gangue's life had meant nothing to them. Her remains leaking and being entombed caused them no anguish, and as the pit boss on shift that day had announced her unfortunate death, he referred to her only by her designation on record: M-08. No name, no title, no fanfare. Just a frame left between walls of stone. 

Megatron was briefly brought out of his memories by Diffuser's steps approaching ever closer, vibrating the grated floor a bit more harshly for the increased proximity. His voice rang out for the attention of others though, so once again Megatron returned to his thoughts, leaning a bit more on his standard issue jackhammer, bracing it against his leg to stave off the urge to sit on a few nearby pallets of drill components- Something sure to get him told off a bit for "easing up while on the job". Diffuser was one of them, but was still a pit boss, and still had the coding protocols employed by all of them. Unfortunate. 

Longwall, a somewhat absent-minded but sweet mech who many believed had been mis-classified or at the very least was assigned to such a difficult type of mining work by accident owing to his significantly lighter frame type, had an unknown alt-mode. 

He had been injured previously at another industrial site, resulting in damage to his processor and t-cog. He didn't recall what he turned into, and efforts to repair him were ineffective without advanced medical care, something no working class bot ever received. Certainly not at the bottom of a mine. 

Disabled bots were rare in the mines, due to the typical result of most related injuries being outright death; It was Longwall's ability to scale mineshafts and run the tunnels to light them ahead of further work processes that made him valuable, so he was kept on. His difficulties didn't hinder him much, his spark seemingly untouched by the challenging and risky work he was handed, and it endeared him to even the harshest of the drillers and borers.

It had been common to see him running into completely blackened pits, only for light to erupt forth once he'd rigged up cables and bulbs in places where headlights and spot lamps wouldn't be effective enough to enable even the sharpest of optics to see well enough to work, let alone work marginally safely. 

He had been one of the more conversational members of the shift crew, his processor damage having removed whatever degree of filter he may have once had on his vocaliser. Instead of irritating the workers, it gave them a voice to follow down darker passageways, and helped to block out the shouts and ambient noise of machinery. 

Until one shift, in which he was running ahead to light the way down a newly dug chamber, and nobody had been able to see the readings on the chemical indicators showing a build up of natural gasses released from the geomatter by the fresh drilling. 

When Longwall, as he usually did, arranged the lights and cables and began to turn them on strand by strand to illuminate the new chamber, a small arc of electricity between a bulb and contact point had set off and ignited the gas buildup, blowing him and the two others following behind him so violently against the hard rock walls that his processor was smashed within him helm for the second time. 

When they brought him back online, he had ceased to be Longwall. A complete reformat was needed, and without more specialist medical aid available, it was a hard reboot, with several fuses having mashed into the processor casing itself. This new Longwall was quiet, and wasn't half as fast, rendering him ineffective at his job. He was decommissioned and returned to the All-Spark after a short and difficult life. 

It was rare to meet disabled bots in the mines. 

The mourning for Longwall had been intense, owing to several rounds of beatings from the more severe pit bosses who cared only for the drop in productivity throughout the mining operation. There had been no formal announcement for him, as he had not been technically killed but rather, only decommissioned. 

Only decommissioned. 

Megatron flared with rage at the memory of that statement, being delivered by a high and mighty pit boss who rarely came to the mine himself, lived in the same safety and paradise as any city dwelling Cybertronian, who didn't know hardly anyone, had no real familiarity with the industry or its people, and had stopped by only to chastise the workers for having the audacity to feel sad over the loss of a fellow worker. Over the loss of a friend, who despite unique vulnerabilities had done his best. Longwall had done better than any upper class mech could have ever done under the same circumstances, and they couldn't even say his name or call out his number. 

Quickly, Megatron shoved his anger out of his EM field, not wanting Diffuser to mistakenly think it was aimed at him and his rather leisurely pace. He was only two groups away now, and would surely, hopefully, be issuing Megatron his work orders soon. Too much time lost at the start meant working into recharge time, and he wanted to do some writing in his berth later. Writing about what, he hadn't yet decided. Something to work out his frustration at this life. 

Again, his mind wandered. 

Was there any hope that he'd survive this job, or any of the jobs he'd ever get? 

His function was, according to society, best suited to the hardest work. Mines were his primary realm, but he'd served brief shifts or gigs in collieries, factories, and other sites. 

The work wasn't as taxing for his frame as it would be for others, and his spark seemed inordinately strong compared to many others; Megatron was used to running on low grade fuel for harder and longer than most could stand, resulting in positive reviews of his work and less harassment from the various pit bosses- Not that it mattered to him a bit. 

There were many complaints, all of them justified; Low pay if any, resulting in a permanent shanix shortage and a localised barter trade in essential goods among the workers. No medical attention of any quality, no educational resources, no opportunities to become anything more than what you were. No chance to become better, or to move on, and certainly not to move up. 

But the hardest aspect of all of it for him was how unstimulated his mind was. 

His shift mates, who were often friendly enough at least to get the work done without bringing collective punishment down upon everyone's heads, but relationships mostly remained shallow. Conversation was left wanting, and what little reading material filtered down to the mines was often the dregs of literature. 

There were no lovers in the pits or chambers that he knew of, and Megatron had only ever read about conjunx ceremonies in a few of the short stories passed around on old data pads between workers, something he rarely engaged in as he found the tone of writing offensive; Stories intended to be distributed amongst working class bots tended to assume a lower reading comprehension level, which was often the case and helped mechs like Longwall who had struggled to follow text from line to line on account of his processor damage, but Megatron couldn't help but feel slightly put off that the assumption was that all workers were universally illiterate. Even bots like Longwall could still read, they just read differently. 

Many of these stories were low quality in general, and produced by writers in Iacon and other cities completely detached from the lifestyles of the miners and industrial workers, making it inaccessible and difficult to relate to in any meaningful way for the intended working class audience. 

He had only ever kept ahold of one such story, Midnight at Maccadam's, in which a worker was unexpectedly swept up by a mysterious doctor for high paying clients who ran into him as he had been called to Maccadam's, evidently some kind of real world popular bar establishment if the chatter of some of the older miners were to be believed, to repair a refrigeration unit that had come off his particular factory line and so the failure was his responsibility. 

Having expected to be admonished and penalised for missing a faulty unit, the kindly bartender instead had him wait in a nearby seat at the bar, next to the doctor who repaired some damage to his hands from overuse while they sat there together. 

After much waffling, eventually it led to a conjunx endura ritual and much celebration, the type of thing Megatron had no real personal interest in... Or perhaps he didn't want to think about how impossible such an outcome was in reality for someone like him, especially as he rarely made trips into any of the cities save for when he was being transported to a new work site and had to pass through for essentials. 

It was decently written, which is the only reason he had deemed it worth keeping, despite its undertones of perhaps being an advertisement for whatever Maccaadam's was, but it had more empathy towards the worker character, who had been a factory line machinist and struggled to relate to the luxury he suddenly found himself in gallivanting around with a doctor who lived in Beryl Heights, similar to any of the huge glass plated shining towers often lived in by the filthy rich. 

Not understanding how to engage with someone in a romantic way, the worker was led by his benefactor and educated in the cultural ways of the great cities, sayings and rituals, things Megatron filed away as possibly useful in the future if any of them proved to be real. 

He didn't know what to think of the story, ultimately. It was middle of the road, but something in him reacted to the conjunx ritual, a yearning for a companion or even a friendship that went beyond shift mates or refuelling station usuals. 

Megatron was afraid to inspire more yearning in his spark. He already dreamt of so many impossible things while recharging that encouraging thoughts of love inspired more fear than passion; What would he do if he fell in love with someone, only for them to die in some awful way, in this or any other dark pit or unstable chamber or endlessly descending shaft? 

His spark was stronger than even his massive frame was, and he didn't want to know what could possibly break it. If nothing else had yet, then it might be love that did him in, and the instinct to survive in these conditions overrode his curiosity.

He refused to linger on these thoughts before it went too far; He drew his EM field a little closer once again, just in case. No desire to be teased, or worse. 

Diffuser was getting nearer... 

Manual labour for some was its own reward or fulfilling in its own right, which was fair. But for Megatron, he wanted a more intellectual pursuit. He felt best and most invigorated when writing, but who would read something a miner wrote? 

It was the only thing to drive him near depression, more so than even the conditions of the mine in general, or the grim fates of his shift mates.

In the face of all this utter slag written about workers and the working class by rich authors in cities and high end high rises, surrounded by glamour fuelled by the energon he helped to mine cycle after cycle, it felt as though nobody would ever hear his own words, nobody cared to hear the voice of an actual working bot. 

But Megatron's spark seemed to rebel with anger alongside that depression; Each time he felt sluggish and detached, his spark would rev and cycle and fight, sometimes successfully enough to manage a particularly rousing poem or an article that would never be published anywhere. 

Unless he published it himself.

But the thought was interrupted by Diffuser, who finally had reached Megatron's unit of heavy frame types awaiting instruction. 

"Alright, Megaton, Crosscut, Feldspar, and Outcrop, you'll be on Chamber Three. Be careful of the footwall, and keep good distance from each other to avoid overloading the structure. Seems like this seam has some problems with structural integrity and we have a couple teams working on stabilising things already, but I don't want any of you to sink through the floor. We don't know what all is down there yet, so proceed slowly and just get a few ore samples so we can determine the quantity of ferrous material to justify the risk of continuing in this chamber or not." 

"Megatron, sir. As in electron, not as in tonnage." 

He spoke up just as Diffuser had started walking away; Megatron's name was a bit tricky for most Cybertronians as the glyphs were easy to misread and were often mispronounced as a result, but even so, it always bothered him when someone got it wrong. Names were hard earned amongst the working classes, who were often given a numerical tag instead of a formal distinction. They had to be reinforced so others would use them, otherwise you got stuck with your initial number or even worse, some nickname thought up by someone else which would stick around for centuries. 

He didn't expect any comment from Diffuser, who was obviously focused on moving to the next group to be briefed on their duties, but it was more for the benefit of those lingering around to overhear and hopefully remember. 

He might not ever find love, but he would find a way to make his name in a world that didn't want him. Surely there was an audience for his writings somewhere. Perhaps even those around him might be interested... He had been writing thus far with no particular audience in mind as he never thought anyone would ever read any of it, but could he say something to his fellow workers to ease the grind, to uplift them, to make things even slightly more bearable for them all? 

He picked up his jackhammer and started to move with the rest of his shift mates to Chamber Three, a precarious and poorly lit wall of stone waiting to be sampled and cleared. 

While they set to work, his mind continued to wander though his hands remained steady, planning out a short and concise piece of writing to pass around and see what the reaction would be as chunks of hard rock rained down around him, a word coming to mind for every new scuff on his frame. 

He hoped he could make an impact in the minds and sparks of the others, the way shards of stone ricocheting off of machinery and drill heads made dents in their armour. 

His daydreaming and careful thinking made the arduous work go by quickly, despite the protoform deep exhaustion that set in at the end of each day. It never deterred him; Writing time was precious as he never had much of it, and every moment counted towards his new goal. 

Back in his berth room, he quickly pulled out a data pad, wiped whatever had been on the screen without looking, and began to rapidly type well past recharging hours. The fatigue tomorrow would be worth it, if his words could provide a charge to his people.

"Dear workers, my comrades, we are told we are worth only as much as our function dictates, that our alt-modes and frames indicate our best served purpose, that our class is immutable and final. But I believe each of us has yearned for far more than an early death and dim, lonely nights..."


End file.
